Fierce HealthcareThe smartest move physician practices can make right now is to move ahead with value-based payment arrangements, experts say. The transition from fee-for-service to value-based care is inevitable and practices that embrace new payment methods will be ahead of the curve, according to Physicians Practice. If doctors are still unsure, here are a few of the reasons it makes sense for practices to move ahead with value-based care.READ MORE

Los Angeles TimesDespite concerns from the public about safety, the private group that oversees physician training voted to allow young doctors to work shifts as long as 28 hours. The new rules, which begin on July 1, relax work restrictions put in place in 2011, when mounting evidence showed that exhausted residents – the term for doctors in training – were endangering both patients and themselves. Currently, first-year residents are restricted to 16-hour shifts.READ MORE

Fierce HealthcareElectronic health record system vendors are turning their attention to an untapped market: Physician practices and small and rural hospitals.
Those healthcare settings present an opportunity for new sales of EHR systems, according to a report by Healthcare Dive. Epic, the EHR giant that dominates the large hospital market, plans to roll out scaled-down, less expensive versions of its legacy systems later this year. READ MORE

The Medical NewsDiabetes is a leading cause of kidney disease, a serious, often fatal complication that is difficult to diagnose in early, potentially treatable stages. Now, a research team at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has revealed biological pathways involved in diabetic kidney disease, providing hope that both early diagnostic tests and targeted treatment can be designed.READ MORE

Fierce HealthcareOnce again, physicians are at the top of the heap when it comes to top-paying jobs. Physicians lead the list of the 25 highest-paying jobs with a median base salary of $187,876, but other medical professions also paid well, according to a report by Glassdoor, an online job recruiting website. Six jobs on the list were from the healthcare sector (up from three in 2016), including nurse practitioners, who made the cut for the first time.READ MORE

Fierce HealthcareFor physicians who worry that their electronic health record system is coming between them and their patients, scribes just might be the answer.
That’s been the case at three doctors' primary care practice in California, where trained scribes are helping keep the computer from interfering with the doctor-patient interaction, wrote Gerardo Hizon, M.D., Hannah Shehata and Ashlee Amparan in Medical Economics.READ MORE

NPRSteve Inskeep talks to conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, who looks ahead to another week of tumultuous politics as President Trump and GOP leaders try to sell their health care plan to the party.READ MORE

Fierce HealthcareJust because a new payment model for doctors is different doesn’t mean it will be better.
While the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) encourages the development of new physician-focused alternative payment models (APMs), how can the government ensure those new models result in better care and lower spending and help physician practices?READ MORE

AJMCA study from Sweden has found that phosphodiesterase-5 (PDE-5) inhibitors, prescribed to men for erectile dysfunction, are good for the heart in more ways than we knew: those who took these drugs after having a heart attack had a much lower risk of dying or being hospitalized for heart failure than men who skipped them. READ MORE

Columbia University Medical Center via Science Daily Researchers have uncovered new genetic clues to understanding IgA nephropathy (IgAN), or Berger's disease, an autoimmune kidney disease and a common cause of kidney failure. The findings are relevant to IgAN as well as other diseases with similar underlying molecular defects, such as inflammatory bowel disease and certain types of blood disease and cancer.READ MORE

The Sacramento BeeComplaints against physicians for misconduct have dogged the Medical Board of California for years. Some say the system is broken, with patients unable to easily figure out if their doctor has been disciplined. With complaints rising – more than 8,000 lodged annually over the past three years – the issue was revived as lawmakers, patients and a consumer group demanded answers on why the number of medical complaints keeps growing and how the medical board is informing patients.READ MORE

Los Angeles TimesMillions of Californians probably would lose health coverage under the Obamacare replacement bill released by House Republicans, experts say. The long-awaited GOP alternative removes the requirement that all Americans sign up for health insurance or pay a penalty, alters the amount of financial assistance offered for plans sold on the marketplaces and bans federal funding for Planned Parenthood.READ MORE